Asembia AXS25: Digital Pharmacy Strategies for Patient-Centered Care

In an interview with Pharmacy Times®, David Skomo, chief operating officer at HealthDyne, and Sarah Thomas, vice president of sales and commercialization at HealthDyne, discussed how digital pharmacy solutions are transforming patient care by providing more convenient and accessible health care options. They highlighted their presentation, “Transforming Access and Affordability: The New Era of Pharmacy,” which they shared at Asembia's AXS25 Summit.

Skomo and Thomas highlighted how pharmacists are increasingly using technology like text communications and artificial intelligence (AI) to extend their reach and anticipate patient needs, especially given current staffing shortages. They shared that the health care industry is working to reduce fragmentation and confusion by streamlining communication across different channels and platforms. Skomo and Thomas emphasized key goals, which include improving medication adherence, making care more affordable, and creating a more personalized patient experience through digital tools.

Pharmacy Times: How can digital pharmacy solutions and telehealth integration best enhance patient access to care and improve medication adherence in today's health care environment?

Sarah Thomas: Telehealth is really meeting the needs of consumers today who have come to expect that they have convenient options for accessing most things in the world, and health care is late to the game and catching up. I would say escalation into the utilization of these services that really have been around for a long time. It's evolved into a model where patients can marry up that convenience with affordable solutions and then different access points. I think that's a good thing, but it can be overwhelming in navigating what's the right channel. How do I get my drug? Is it better at Walgreens, or is there a better unit for a home delivery model? It is still not quite there, but we're getting there.

David Skomo: As Sarah said, there is a lot of fragmentation out there, and it drives a lot of frustration and confusion for patients. As we continue to evolve these digital strategies, we really need to think primarily about the patient as the consumer and how we best communicate with the patient to eliminate that fragmentation and confusion that has come with our most recent evolution.

Pharmacy Times: What specific digital tools and patient engagement strategies can pharmacists leverage to create a more personalized and efficient health care experience for their patients?

Thomas: Pharmacists play a critical role in patient care. You think about the traditional retail model; they're seeing a pharmacist more frequently than they’re seeing their doctor. As the shortages and staffing for pharmacies and closures of pharmacies have come across, there's more of a need to extend that pharmacist's reach using technology. It's no longer practical to have face-to-face for every fill with a prescription. I think utilizing things like text-based communications and using artificial intelligence to anticipate what the patient's needs are going to be for things like side effects of therapy or common questions that may come up are great opportunities to bring that pharmacist expertise to the patient in a little bit more scalable and convenient way too for the patient.

Skomo: I would just say that some of the lack of use of those tools in the past 5 to 10 years has been a little bit problematic. As pharmacists and pharmacies can continue to adopt these tools and think about how to make it easier to communicate with the patient, how do I help them navigate and help them understand it's these digital tools that, until recently, pharmacies really haven't done a great job of adopting, and we're starting to see more of that adoption, which I think will really help drive better patient care in the future.

Pharmacy Times: What are the main challenges and opportunities for pharmacies adopting digital solutions?

Skomo: There is an opportunity for pharmacies to improve patient care, better health outcomes, and better patient adherence. Some of the challenges today are that there is a lack of continuity. They are maybe getting communicated to by their pharmacy. They might be getting communicated to by their physician. They may get communicated to by their insurer, their PBM. How do you bring that all together so that patients are getting a streamlined approach to accessing care? That's where we still see some challenge today.

Thomas: I think that creates a little bit of friction and confusion in the process of pharmacy. They're trying to drive better outcomes for their patients. They have metrics to hit. They want their patients to stay on therapy, and they want to be able to extend that care. I think managing through the complexity of all those other channels that patients are getting hit with.

Skomo: Sarah talked about it earlier too; some of the pricing questions that come up about how to access the most affordable care for a patient are very difficult to navigate. We can certainly deploy digital tools that really help a patient understand the price of medication on benefit, the price of medication off benefit, and the best pharmacy channel to use. Those types of things really help drive an easier path to accessing the affordable medications and ultimately driving better outcomes for the patient.